In the News
SOCIAL SECURITY CHECKS WILL GET A SMALL BUMP
When the first 2025 Social Security check arrives next month, it’ll include a 2.5 percent increase. That’s much smaller than in any year since 2021, as inflation rose in the wake of COVID-19.
The cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) will bump up the average Social Security retirement benefit by $49 a month, to approximately $1,976, says the Social Security Administration. The estimated average survivor benefit will rise from $1,788 to $1,832 and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) from $1,542 to $1,580.
The modest increase may leave some retirees scrambling to meet budgetary needs, experts say. “Inflation is clearly top of mind, not just for retirees, but for Americans generally,” says Rob Williams, managing director of financial planning at Charles Schwab.
$1,976
average monthly Social Security retirement benefit
But Williams notes that it “builds on a 5.9 percent increase in payments in 2022, 8.7 percent in 2023 and 3.2 percent this year.”
The COLA is determined by year-to-year changes in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W), which tracks price trends for a market basket of goods and services.
Even some of the small COLA increase may go to pay for Medicare increases. In their 2024 annual report, Medicare’s trustees projected that the standard premium paid by most Part B beneficiaries—$174.80 a month this year—will rise to $185 a month in 2025. That would effectively reduce the Social Security COLA by $10.20 a month for most recipients
MEDICARE Rx CHANGES COMING NEXT MONTH
If you are a Medicare beneficiary with Part D prescription medication coverage, get ready for changes beginning next month.
For one thing, you won’t pay more than $2,000 in out-of-pocket expenses for prescription drugs in 2025—a historic change backed by AARP that’s expected to benefit more than 3 million older Americans next year.
And starting Jan. 1, people with a Medicare prescription drug plan—including Medicare Advantage plans with prescription drug coverage—spread their prescription drug costs throughout the year, instead of paying them all at once. This means a $2,000 bill in January could become a $167 monthly payment.
The new program, called the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan, is designed to address the cash-flow issue that many people face when it comes time to pay for their medications, says Meena Seshamani, who directs the Center for Medicare. People “experience sticker shock if they have one prescription that has a very high cost and they have to pay all of that in one lump sum,” Seshamani says. The new payment plan “enables these people to spread costs out over the remainder of the year, so they don’t have ... to pay all of this money up front.”
CDC Urges Pneumonia Vaccine Starting at Age 50
Government health officials now recommend that anyone 50 or older get a shot to protect them from pneumococcal disease, a serious bacterial infection that can lead to pneumonia, meningitis and other ailments. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed its advice on the vaccine in late October. Until then, only people 65-plus were urged to get the vaccine.
William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University, points out that roughly 30 to 50 percent of adults ages 50 to 64 have an underlying condition that puts them at higher risk for pneumococcal disease. “So we would like to vaccinate a large proportion of that population,” Schaffner says.
Studies show the pneumococcal vaccine can help lower your chances of contracting the disease, or reduce its severity if you do get it, possibly saving your life. [Also see “Is it Bronchitis or Pneumonia”.]
Pneumococcal disease is an umbrella term for infections caused by the Streptococcus pneumoniae spread through the air by coughing or sneezing. An estimated 150,000 Americans are hospitalized with pneumococcal pneumonia each year, and about 1 in 20 of those die.
THE SMELL TEST
Losing one’s sense of smell may warn of a staggering 139 other ailments like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, researchers from the University of California, Irvine, found. But achieving “olfactory enrichment” can improve memory in older adults by 226 percent, the researchers say.